Grants and Writing Resources for Sacred Heart University

Sacred Heart students gave 73 presentations in 19 faculty-facilitated sessions between April 20 and April 24, 2026, as part of the Academic Festival. The festival closed that Friday with a student poster session and an awards ceremony.

The Academic Festival

Every April, undergraduate and graduate students from all of SHU's colleges show their research, scholarship, creative work and design at the Academic Festival. Students finishing thesis-level work give papers in the week before a closing poster session, and an awards ceremony follows the posters. Projects can be individual or team efforts, and work in progress is accepted if it will be substantially complete by the festival.

Presenters may enter up to two award categories. One of them is Best Writing, which takes a separate submission. The others are Best Multidisciplinary Research or Collaboration, Best Visuals, Most Creative, Most Scholarly Impact or Potential, and Best Technology Prototype. Past projects are archived in the Academic Festival collection on DigitalCommons@SHU.

Grants and Assistantships

The College of Arts & Sciences' Undergraduate Research Initiative Committee funds Arts & Sciences students who do research with a faculty mentor. Past applicants have come from English, history, communications and social work as well as the lab sciences. The committee posts sample proposals, and its three grants each cover a different need. The Materials & Supplies Grant covers materials, supplies and resources for original research. The Travel Grant pays travel, lodging and meals for undergraduates presenting at academic or professional conferences. The Summer Grant pays a student stipend for summer research, and its budget can include materials and conference travel.

Graduate students can apply for graduate assistantships. Research and teaching assistants work with faculty on research or teaching and usually receive some tuition remission, though only a limited number of those posts exist. Administrative assistantships often carry a stipend. Students thinking about a Fulbright can start with the Center for Career and Professional Development, which keeps a Fulbright page with its staff contacts.

Where Student Research Is Published

The Sacred Heart University Scholar is an e-journal for undergraduate research from every discipline. The library's repository also holds SHU Undergraduate Works, a selection of student papers and presentations.

Graduate work goes to the Graduate Scholarship community of DigitalCommons@SHU. Its 13 collections include the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership, DBA dissertations from the Jack Welch College of Business & Technology, sixth-year theses in educational leadership and a Master of Teaching collection.

Writing Tutors and the OWL

The Center for Teaching & Learning, on the second floor of the West Building, gives free tutoring and academic support to undergraduate and graduate students. Its writing support runs three ways: one-on-one sessions in person or online, drop-in hours at set locations, and the Online Writing Lab, where a tutor reviews a submitted paper and sends back comments on argument, mechanics, style and documentation. Appointments and OWL submissions both go through the PASS Portal.

Plan ahead. CTL tutors do not copy edit, proofread or revise papers, and the center asks writers to leave at least 72 hours after an OWL submission to work the feedback into a draft.

When a dissertation, thesis or course paper needs a last proofread for grammar, consistency and format, our editors can take it on. See our Sacred Heart University dissertation and thesis editing and Sacred Heart University essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.

From Our Writing Guides

• How to Write a Persuasive Essay: Building a Compelling Case
• Methodology Chapter Secrets: Building the Architecture of Your Argument
• From Dissertation to Publication: The Final Scholarly Synthesis